The final draft at last! By this point you have spent almost 10 hours working on your ideas and communicating them in writing. That's amazing!
The objective of this final draft is to:
Write a paper that you are proud of, a paper that communicates a nuanced and interesting idea in a clear and effective way.
The final draft must meet the following criteria:
1500-2000 words
Double-spaced
Times New Roman font
An introduction that lays out a tension or problem
An argumentative and specific thesis addressing that problem.
Clear transitions between paragraphs
Log your hours carefully, because you will be submitting a labor log with this assignment
Step 1: Preparation
(15-20 mins) Review your peer feedback discussion, and your notes from our one-on-one meeting (if we had one). Write for fifteen to twenty minutes, reflecting on where you are right now, what you need to do next. What have you learned? What are you doing well? What do you need to work on? Where should you start your final draft process?
(30 mins - could be more but don't get lost here) Do whatever preparatory work you need to do. For each of you this is different at this point, but all of you need look back at your passages and push yourself to do more analysis. Analysis was very limited in these early drafts. So, that’s where you can start. Remember, the way to push yourself to analyze more is to ask Why? Why? Why? You can also find a few more passages that are relevant if you are reworking your topic or question.
Step 2: Drafting I am not assigning labor times for this section, because your times will vary depending on what you focused on for your draft. You should be logging the time in your labor log. You may want to write how long it takes you to work on the introduction, body, and conclusion separately for future reference— especially those of you who are interested in careers or classes that will require writing. The more you know about your writing practices, the better you can manage your time.
Introduction
1. Initial Survey: Introduce your text and topic, based on how it would appear to the most superficial reading.
2. The Turn: Unsettle this reading by describing how closer examination of your topic actually introduces a question, tension, or problem in the text.
3. The Thesis: The thesis is your specific, argumentative answer to this question, tension, or problem. HOWEVER, your thesis should be the last part of the paper that you write or revise. For now, in the place where your thesis will go, put in brackets a “working thesis,” or, if you do not yet have one, put your initial question.
Body Paragraphs
You do not have specific introductions for this step. Hopefully, you will already have a good portion of your paper written from Draft 1. Here are some guidelines:
Remember that your introductory paragraph introduces a question, tension, or problem in the poem, and your thesis answers it. Your paper should walk us through how you get to that answer. It should not repeat the same point over and over again so much as show us a mind in movement on the page, working through a question.
Every paragraph (other than the introduction and conclusion) should have at least one close-reading.
You should have a clear and argumentative thesis. That doesn’t have to mean taking “one side” of an argument. Remember and refer to our model from the thesis workshop of the thesis’s “evolution”:
1) formulate an idea about your subject
2) use your thesis to explain as much evidence as it can
3) locate evidence that does not fit with your thesis
4) make explicit the mismatch between your thesis and the evidence that doesn’t fit
5) reshape your claim to accommodate what doesn’t fit
6) repeat
Remember that your thesis should be specific, and exhibit tension (the push-pull between two ideas – “Although exercise is good for you, too much exercise will hurt you”). Try formulating your thesis with a “While” or an “Although.”
Paragraph Structure
After you've written a draft of your body paragraphs, go back through and look at your paragraph structure. Each paragraph should:
1) Begin with a transition that clearly articulates the relationship between the main point of this paragraph and the main point of the paragraph that came before. Your transitions should indicate differences between body paragraphs - how does this paragraph add, qualify, or nuance the main idea of the paper/the idea that has come before it? Refer to the argument shaping workshop handout (on bcourses) to review transitions.
2) Try out using the "uneven U" structure. You do not need to follow the uneven U exactly, but make sure that you are beginning with a topic sentence and ending with a concluding sentence. Do not leave any of your evidence unmediated - i.e. give us a level 1 (direct evidence) without a level 2 describing it. Try not to leave level 1's hanging without any analysis. Think about the components of your paragraphs: are you providing too much raw evidence and not enough analysis, or vice versa?
Conclusion
After you finish writing the main body of the paper, write your conclusion. In your conclusion, address the following question:
Why is the claim you’re making the main claim we need to know to understand the entire text?
Step 3: Editing (30-45 mins)
1. Read your paper aloud, slowly and clearly. Listen for any moments where the prose sounds awkward. Revise them.
2. Read your paper one more time, silently, for typos, comma misuse, and grammatical errors. Fix them.
In order to be considered complete, you must turn in to me on Monday, April 9:
Your 15 minute free-write from Step 1
Your 1500-2000 word paper
A printed labor log showing the last two weeks of labor
you must also upload a draft of Paper 2 Draft 2 to bcourses